1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for the automatic screening and disposition of telephone calls, and more particularly to a system having the option whereby the calling party can agree to accept all phone company charges for the call, including cellular phone charges normally the responsibility of the called party.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Telephone answering systems are well known in the prior art. These include, for example, simple machines such as a telephone answering machine directly connected to a telephone for recording phone messages, internal voice mail for a phone system and call routing systems for transferring calls to the appropriate extension within an office building. With a simple answering machine, a called party can “screen” incoming calls by listening to the message as it is being recorded by the calling party and decide whether to answer the call by picking up the phone and talking directly to the calling party. In conjunction with caller ID systems, for example, wherein the number of the calling party is also displayed for immediate identification of the calling party, the called party can decide whether or not to answer that particular call. With an internal voice mail system, a called party can automatically route his or her calls to the voice mail system such that the called party's phone never rings and the calling party is immediately directed to leave a message for the called party. In this instance, the called party may never know that someone is calling or that an important message is being delayed in its transmission to the called party. In addition, if the called party is already on the phone, the calling party is either directed to voice mail or a phone routing system will direct that call to the called party's secretary or to another extension so that the calling party's call can immediately be answered. In either of these situations, it is required that someone within the called party's organization be available to answer the call in order to “screen” incoming calls so that the called party can answer only those calls which he or she deems important.
Typically, for cellular phone customers, whether or not the customer is the calling party or the called party, the cellular phone customer must pay for all usage charges on the cellular system. While digital cellular phone systems allow caller ID services, the retrieval of this information is not always successful. Having caller ID information, a called party cellular customer can screen incoming calls and not answer the phone such that the calling party must leave a message in the person's voice mail, the called party still must incur cellular usage charges in order to retrieve that message from the voice mail. Thus, a cellular customer called party is given no option as to whether or not to accept charges for an unwanted incoming cellular call.
In addition to some of these call routing systems, occasionally a calling party may feel frustrated with having to leave a message rather than talking to a person directly when an important call must be taken by the called party as soon as possible. It would be advantageous, therefore, if an intermediate system could answer the calling party's call such that the called party can then be notified who is calling and whether or not that party is willing to accept all of the charges normally the responsibility of the called party.